the opposite of text.
all it what you will - 'rapid text,' 't9,' 'e-z text'; my phone calls it, simply, 'word' (word up!) - but under any name, the predictive text message entry function on the cellie provides for some interesting wordplay. for example, 'me' and 'of' come out of the same keystrokes.ive long quested for the two words (let's call them textonyms*, shall we?) that are actually linked in some poetic way, definition-wise. like, 'cycle' being 'awake,' and 'jordan' being 'korean' are funny coincidences, but they're not quite meaningful. unless jordan is korean, or is dating some korean lady. 'book' being 'cool' is not bad, but there must be something better out there.
well, there is. last night i serendipitously discovered that 'proud' and 'prove' are the same keystrokes in predictive text. these are the most fitting textonyms i have seen. if anyone else has some faves, id love to hear about them.
*also, will someone else write the word textonym online somewhere? i smell my first wikipedia entry...
ps - right after i posted this, i did a quick search on the google, and found out im too late. the urban dictionary contains txtonym. damnonym!
posted by Colby | 10:58 AM
12 Comments:
Reporting technical difficulties...why is the basilica afflicted with a large amount of space between the top of the page and the latest post?
I love this game. The search for a good pair of textonyms may even lead me to embrace texting in general. Willy Boy and I have a similar search going (without the technical component) - we are looking for pairs of words that have the same root and could have somewhat related meanings on that basis, but are not synonyms. Examples - 1) duplicitous and duplicative. Both have a root that means "two," but duplicitous means deliberately deceptive or two-faced, while duplicative means something that replicates an original. 2) artful and artistic. Both have a root that means, well, "art," but artful means sly, crafty, cunning, etc., while artistic means showing skill in executing or propensity to execute art. Pairs like these illustrate the genius, ingenuity and beauty of language development. I can't remember any others we've come up with (and this has been going on for at least a couple of years).
best. comment. evah.
Given that confidence boost, I'll add to my comment with the funny (I hope) story that lead to the creation of the game.
I have an ex-boss who I love and respect, but who considered himself something of a linguist when in fact the opposite was true - the man could barely string a coherent sentence together. He once handed me a stack of papers and said "go through this and make sure it isn't duplicitous." I cracked up, and when he asked me what was so funny, I said "how will I know if this stack of paper is duplicitous? Will it compliment me and then talk shit about me behind my back?" I told him I thought he was looking for the word "duplicative." He didn't believe me and shooed me away. (Side note: This ex-boss of mine also referred to things as being "problematical," which I thought was extremely funny, until I looked it up and found that it actually exists in the dictionary, much to my chagrin and his glee. I still maintain that the entry of "problematical" in any dictionary is shameless pandering to masses of word-misusers. It is clearly one of those words that is created from another word misused so often that it eventually made its way into the lexicon. There is absolutely no difference between "problematic," the right word, and "problematical," the wrong word that's now a real word. Or maybe I'm just stubborn.) Anyway, Willy Boy and I started searching for similar word pairs after I told him this story.
much like the halls of fred-taylor circa 97, it's the c-lby and nora show!
i think your story is hilarious, and your ex-boss sounds like a total mongoloid idiot. problematical annoys me as well. to no end.
here's a sub-game. think of words that actually are synonyms and antonyms at the same time. for instance, cleave. it means both to stick together AND split apart. but that's the only one i know. although hole and whole are good as homonyms go.
Love it.
Here's another related game: think of words that mean one thing, but are very commonly misused to mean exactly the opposite. For instance: ambivalent. Often misused to mean apathetic, when it really means strong feelings in opposition, or being torn between two opposing courses of action. (It's actually the only one I know - I think I used to know another, but I forgot it, and I even forgot whether I ever knew it in the first place).
i used to confuse ambivalent with apathetic ALL THE TIME! to this day, i stop myself and think it over before i say either word.
i am drawing a blank when it comes to all these notions. i know i know some... but my brain is like "really? are you trying to remember these right now? like now?" so forget that.
while we discuss general malapropism, i needed to use this moment to declare my annoyance at the use of sporadic. people often use it to describe ambivalence (nora your def'ns reminded me of this) "my feelings on that are so sporadic." this makes no sense people. stop sporadically using sporadic incorrectly.
i like the rant, jeannius. in the interest of full disclosure, my first thought was 'i know saying sporadic like that isnt *eloquent* but is it actually wrong?' but yes, it is, b/c sporadic means infrequent, not scattered, as the malaproppers of whom you speak prolly think.
while were at it, it's 'i could NOT care less,' not 'i could care less.' if you could care less, than you care to some degree. use that phrase correctly, please.
also, it's 'you cant eat your cake and have it too.' if you have cake, of course youre gonna eat it, so saying 'you cant have your cake and eat it too' makes no sense.
and why am i getting deja vu writing all this? i might have posted about this before? who knows.
oooh there are so many more i might just burst.
here i should admit that i have a tendency to misuse "in lieu of." tis a simple definition, meaning instead or in place of - but i sometimes use it in lieu of (HAH!) "in light of."
Like, "In lieu of recent facts I've changed my mind in this matter." This obviously makes no sense at all.
I know the meaning, always have. But somehow i prefer saying lieu and not light.
maybe i'm just a francophile? not sure...
haha - i love it! i think 'In lieu of recent facts I've changed my mind in this matter' is great, regardless. it's like you're saying 'i dont CARE what the facts are, im changing my mind!'
there's also 'for all intents and purposes,' in lieu of which i always used to say 'for all intensive purposes.'
now im REALLY getting deja vu. ive almost certainly blogged about that last phrase, or spoken to nora and or jeannie about it.
We have DEFINITELY discussed "for all intents and purposes" before. I think the gist of the conversation was that we were tickled to learn that we both thought it was "for all intensive purposes." It reminds me of when I was little and my dad asked me how I thought "gin and tonic" was spelled. I came up with something like "jinentanick." I had NO idea that there were three separate and distinct words in the phrase.
And as long as we're griping about all this, I will add that I notice people saying "But yet." It is totally redundant. Say "but." Or, say "yet." You don't need both.
And I also find that people mix up "nevertheless," "nonetheless" and "no less." Both nevertheless and nonetheless mean despite anything to the contrary (e.g. "I hate Giselle. Nevertheless, I admit that she's gorgeous." Or "I don't like Henry but I have to work with him nonetheless." "No less" is an almost sarcastic phrase used at the end of a sentence to convey outrage, or the weightiness of the subject matter (for example: "Now he drives a BMW, no less!" (said to describe someone who used to follow the Greatful Dead) or "You're talking about my marriage here, no less!" (said to a friend who's about to tell your spouse that you're cheating)). People use nevertheless or nonetheless when they mean no less ALL THE TIME.
Finally, enormity. It doesn't just mean hugeness or importance. It has a very negative connotation, like outrageousness or atrociousness. I misuse this word a lot, I think. The phrase "enormity of the situation" should only be used to describe times when a missile hits, or something like that.
this thread is an instant classic, like that movie the graduate, or the orioles giving up 30 runs in 9 innings. i'll add one to the mix:
i hate it when people use 'legitimate' as a verb, with a hard 'a' sound -- like, legiti-mate. the proper word, as far as i'm concerned, is 'legitimize,' meaning to make legitimate, which is an adjective. but i was embarrassed in a law school class, a la nora's problematical experience, to learn that legiti-mate is, in fact, a real verb. and to add insult to injury, so is legitimatize. who knew?
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